New announcement: Coping with military-related post-traumatic stress disorder (STUDY)

Coping with military-related post-traumatic stress disorder

Project title:

Exploring Drug Usage Among Canadian Veterans with Chronic Pain and Military Related Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Lead researcher:

Roxanne Sterniczuk, PhD
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
1355 Oxford St. Rm. 3263
3rd Fl. Life Sciences Centre
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2

Other researchers:

John Whelan, PhD, R. Psych
Whelan Psychological Services Incorporated
Rockingham Ridge Plaza
30 Farnham Gate Road, Suite C
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3M 3E3

Sean Barrett, PhD, R. Psych
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
1355 Oxford St. Rm. 3263
3rd Fl. Life Sciences Centre
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2

Introduction:

We invite you to take part in a research study being conducted by Dr. Roxanne Sterniczuk who is a Clinical Psychology PhD student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University. She will be conducting her study under the supervision of Dr. John Whelan who is the lead psychologist at Whelan and Associates psychological services, and Dr. Sean Barrett who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie University.

Taking part in the research is up to you; it is entirely your choice. Even if you do take part, you may leave the study at any time for any reason. The information below tells you about what is involved in the research, what you will be asked to do, and about any benefit, risk, inconvenience or discomfort that you might experience.

Please ask as many questions as you like. If you have any questions later, please contact the lead researcher.

Purpose and outline of the research study:

This research looks at the relationships between substance use, both prescription and non-prescription, in Canadian Forces (CF) veterans with military-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who may or may not have chronic pain. The laws surrounding marijuana use in Canada are rapidly changing and there is also an increasing number of former CF members being diagnosed with military-related PTSD; it is important to understand the prevalence and reasons for marijuana use in this population and how it relates to the use of other substances, because this information can help guide better treatment for our injured veterans.

Who can take part in the research study?

You may participate this in this study if (1) you have previously served in the CF, regardless of where and which branch you served in, your position, your age, your sex, and the time since your discharge; and (2) you are currently undergoing treatment for military-related PTSD.

How many people are taking part in this study?

We aim to recruitment at least 100 participants.

What you will be asked to do:

To help us understand the relationship between marijuana use, chronic pain, and military-related PTSD, we will ask you to complete a brief, 5-20 minute questionnaire. Along with reading this consent form, the study should take no more than 25 minutes.

Possible benefits, risk, and discomforts:

Participating in this research might not immediately or directly benefit you, but the information that you provide will increase our understanding of the reasons behind marijuana use in those with military-related PTSD. This will further our society?s knowledge of this important issue.

There are some possible risks associated with this study. Due to the sensitive nature of the area of research, you may find that certain questions that are asked of you cause some distress or discomfort. You may not like all of the questions that you will be asked. You do not have to answer those questions that you find too distressing or that you do not wish to answer.

How your information will be protected:

No identifying information will be collected within the survey, meaning that you will not be identified in any way within our data set or our reports. The information that you provide will contain no links to your former military-related status. A participant number will be assigned to each survey in our written and computerized records. By completing the online survey you are consenting to having your information used in our research study. If you should choose to withdraw from the study, you may simply close the survey without submitting the data that you have entered; it will be not be saved within our survey system. Information that you do submit to us upon completing the survey will be kept private. Only the research team will have access to this information. In some cases, other authorized officials at the University such as the Research Ethics Board or the Scholarly Integrity Officer may have access as well. We will describe and share our findings in an academic manuscript that will be submitted for publication. The people who work with your de-identified information have an obligation to keep all research information private. All electronic records will be kept secure in a password-protected, encrypted file on the researcher's personal computer.

If you decide to stop participating:

You are free to leave the study at any time. If you decide to stop participating at any point during the study, you can also decide whether you want any of the information that you have contributed up to that point to be removed or if you will allow us to use that information. Given that no identifying information will be collected, it will be impossible to remove the data once it has been submitted.

How to obtain results:

Given that this study will not be collecting any personal information, we will not be able to provide results directly to you. Any data that is published from this study may be found using the article search engine PubMed. The following terms may be used within articles that have published findings from this study: Sterniczuk, Whelan, and/or Barrett; along with: military, veteran, PTSD, cannabis, marijuana, drug use, and/or chronic pain.

Questions:

We are happy to talk with you about any questions or concerns you may have about your participation in this research study. Please contact Dr. Roxanne Sterniczuk (rsterniczuk@dal.ca) or Dr. John Whelan (902 461-0476; drjjwhelan@whelanpsych.com) at any time with questions, comments, or concerns about the research study (if you are calling long distance, please call collect).

If you have any ethical concerns about your participation in this research, you may also contact the Director, Research Ethics, Dalhousie University at (902) 494-1462, or email: ethics@dal.ca

Conflict of Interest Statement:

As per Articles 3.1 and 7.4 in the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, there is a dual role conflict of interest, and possible undue influence, on the part of Dr. Whelan, who will be participating in the recruitment of participants as a therapist, as well as in supervising the research study. There is minimal risk to you because no private information pertaining to the study questionnaire will be directly gathered by Dr. Whelan. He will only be able to provide further clarification regarding the purpose of the study if you have any questions. However, it will be at your discretion whether or not to partake in the study, and you will remain completely anonymous. Dr. Whelan, along with the rest of the research team, will not be aware of your participation.

https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=23105
https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=23105

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You can view the full announcement by following this link:
http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php?topic=14495.0

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: Don’t Give Up the Fight by Dr. Antoon A. Leenaars a suicidologist

Don't Give Up the Fight

A Blog on Military Trauma and Suicide

Dr. Antoon A. Leenaars

This blog has been long urged on me. Mike Blais, President/Founder of the Canadian Veterans Advocacy, and Bruce Moncur, President, Afghanistan Veteran's Association are two. There are others, military and civilian. I am the First Past President of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention (CASP). I am not a veteran, nor military personnel; people, such as veterans and police, call me a suicide expert, a suicidologist. They call me, "Doc". We have joined forces to make suicide among the Canadian Forces and Veterans visible. Once it is visible enough ("We are here"), it is visible. Often we read in the media about one more of our heroes dying by suicide. There have been clusters, causing a contagion. From our experiences, we are deeply concerned.

War is violence. War stress is unforgiving. Suicide is an all too frequent cost of service. This is true today. It is the lead cause of death in the Canadian military. What are the facts? Why? What can we do? Like in the U.S., we knew too little was being done in Canada. One simply has to listen to the soldiers and veterans in both countries.

As one response, I was asked to do a blog; my first question was, "What is a blog?" I am new to computers; I only began using them in 1971. Fortunately, my daughter, Kristen, has a graduate degree in Marketing PR; she has a weekly blog. I write books; most recently (Dec., 2013), I authored Suicide among the Armed Forces: Understanding the cost of service. A blog is a message. (Marshall McLuhan, author of The Media is the Massage, would agree.) Books are too, but they are also different. A blog, Kristen told me, is short, clear and concise. I thank her for her guidance, but will probably disobey all the rules of blogging. Thus, here is my first attempt, beginning with the end of my blog.

To our soldiers and veterans, I state: You need your courage and hope. You are an intelligent, adept soldier. You have to accept the unacceptable—what you cannot change—and you have to have the courage to change what you can. Some of you know this as The Serenity Prayer or the teachings of the Buddha, Saint Francis, Friedrich Nietzsche, the Dalai Lama, X. You need to get beyond the traumatization, unbearable pain, suicide risk, vulnerability, and so on. You are a hero, and I believe in your ability to stop, pause, and reflect. You can be resilient. Healing is possible. The true warrior seeks help! Here I follow the wisdom of Jacob Bronowski (1973) in the famed book, The Ascent of Man (This dates me.) What makes a person a person—and a soldier a soldier—is the ability to wait, to think, to talk, to pause, to reflect, and so on, before the act. In the battlefield, the soldier does no different.

You, in the military, have worked hard as a soldier or pilot or Marine or sailor; now you can trust that strength to work hard on choosing life. You can have confidence that there is help available and that there are people—a Minister of Defence, a Major, a sergeant, a psychologist, a fellow armed services member/buddy and so on—in the military that care! You have green (military) courage. Courage is to change what you can. The anodynic experience, to somewhat quote Aldous Huxley, is not what happened to you; it is what you do with what happened to you. I offer some scripts: Don't buy into the stigma. (Any sane person would feel traumatized.) There is effective help. Choose life. Don't give up the fight!

The soldier needs to trust her or his courage; despite all that has happened to you in harm's way and since, you have adjusted to stress, beyond what you imagined the first day of boot camp. I strongly believe that your life, and mine, is like that of the mythical Greek Sisyphus. Sisyphus lived in the heavens with the gods and on Earth with mortals. He saw the painful and depressing life of humans and knew what would help. The gods had an anodyne. (An anodyne is a substance or agent or person or system that fights pain.) Despite Zeus's orders, Sisyphus stole the gods' secrets and helped humankind. Zeus raged and banished him from the heavens. Sisyphus was doomed to the human condition; each day he had to push a boulder up a mountain, only to watch it tumble back down, causing the task to be repeated the next day. Your and my life is no different. Each day we must ceaselessly roll our distinctive rock to the top of our mountain, and the next day we must persevere and do the same. (There is a children's story with the same meaning; the little train that has to get up the hill ["I think I can"].) This is not to be condemned; this is life. We have to accept the unacceptable. Military life makes it even more so; the mountain is even higher. It is Mount Everest! The military system/culture and war make it so. Yet, if you believe the Greek wisdom keeper, Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of humans. As with our ancient Greek hero, I do not want to inoculate you against trauma, the common military approach; I will attempt in this blog, from a suicidologist's perspective, to do something different. (I do not pretend to be in the military; I offer a suicide expert's perspective.) I will attempt to make suicide among the armed forces more visible. What I have learned what is most helpful is to persevere. ("I think You can".) I hope that this mantra will help you get in touch with your Sisyphean strength (what are called protective factors) that build natural surviving of the aftershock; what the Prussian War theorist, General Carl Gottfried Von Clausewitz, in the 1800's, called "friction", of everyday military service, deep within the mind, heart, body, and soul. This blog, I hope, will help you to heal your pain, to end your suicide risk. You can survive!

Don't give up the fight!

Reference: Leenaars, A. (2013). Suicide Among the Armed Forces: Understanding the Cost of Service. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

About Author:
Dr. Antoon A. Leenaars is a clinical and forensic psychologist. He is the first Past President of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention; a Past President of the American Association of Suicidology, the only non-American to date; and an elected Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association. He has published extensively on suicide, military suicide, police suicide and homicide-suicide, homicide, terrorism, etc., including 13 books, most recently Suicide among the Armed Forces: Understanding the cost of service. He was the first Editor-in-Chief of the international journal, Archives of Suicide Research and has consulted to the WHO, military groups, police services, and governments around the world.

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Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: The moral obligation to know our veterans

The moral obligation to know our veterans: Mike Haynie at TEDxUniversityofNevada

Published on Feb 3, 2014

Dr. Mike Haynie is the Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families and the Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University's Whitman School. In this talk he discusses how as a result of the all-volunteer approach to military service, most people in the United States do not understand the challenges facing our veterans.

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Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

New announcement: FREE B&B ACCOMMODATIONS ON REMEMBRANCE DAY TO HONOUR VETS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL

BBCanada.com is proud to be assisting Canadian Bed and Breakfast owners in launching the 2014 B&Bs for Vets campaign to celebrate Remembrance Day. Canadian B&B owners would like to honour and say THANK YOU to our veterans and active military personnel and for this reason they are joining hundreds of B&Bs across North America in the "B&Bs for Vets" initiative. This unique program allows veterans and military personnel to stay at a participating B&B, FREE OF CHARGE for either the night of Monday November 10th or Tuesday November 11th, 2014.

We hope that we can count on your support to get the message out to Canadian veterans and military personnel about the B&Bs For Vets annual event. In order to publicize this event, attached is a press release in both English www.bbcanada.com/bb_demo/enews/2014/october/Vetsposter.pdf and French www.bbcanada.com/bb_demo/enews/2014/october/Vetsposter_f.pdf and a link to our English and French posters. Please feel free to print and display or hand out these posters as needed.

BBCanada has dedicated a web page to the campaign B&Bs for Vets. Your members will be able to view all participating B&Bs, and link to their homepage, http://www.bbcanada.com/bbforvets , which offers a full description of the B&B, along with their policies and contact details in order to make a reservation. Last year, many B&B owners were disappointed that no one booked their FREE rooms. This year, we would like to make a special effort to get the word out to our "Vets" so they can enjoy being treated ~ they certainly deserve it!

If you require any additional information, please feel free to contact Lisa by email or call 1-800-239-1141 ext. 6679.

Thanking you for your support
.
Best regards,

Cathy Lisa

Cathy McGowan Lisa Le Chatton
General Manager Director of Sales and Marketing
Web: BBCanada.com Web: BBCanada.com
Web: GitesCanada.com Web: GitesCanada.com
Email: cmcgowan@bbcanada.com Email: llechatton@bbcanada.com

Toll-free : (800) 239-1141 ext. 6675 Toll-free : (800) 239-1141 ext. 6679
Fax / Télécopieur : (905) 297-7351 Fax / Télécopieur : (905) 297-7351

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The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

Military suicides outnumbered deaths in Afghanistan, new stats show

Military suicides outnumbered deaths in Afghanistan, new stats show

Dominique La Haye, QMI Agency

First posted: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 04:26 AM MDT | Updated: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 04:50 AM MDT

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/09/16/military-suicides-outnumbered-deaths-in-afghanistan-new-stats-show

[img]http://storage.edmontonsun.com/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1297526032734_ORIGINAL.jpg?quality=80&size=420x[/img]

MONTREAL — There were more suicides in the Canadian Forces since 2002 than combat deaths during Canada's Afghanistan mission, according to a report obtained by QMI Agency.

In the 12 years that Canadians fought in Afghanistan, 158 Armed Forces members were killed. According to records obtained from the Department of National Defence, there were 178 Canadian Forces suicides in the same period.

Due to standard military practice to issue only the numbers of suicides of full-time male soldiers — so the military can compare those statistics with the same age in the general population — previous numbers did not include female soldiers or reservists.

This has allowed the government to state that the suicide rate of a full-time male members of the Armed Forces is no different than that of the average Canadian from a similar demographic.

"I think the problem is much bigger than the numbers show," military lawyer and retired Col. Michel Drapeau said. "Many suicides occur after the person has left the Armed Forces and those numbers aren't included in the totals.

"Often, the ones who have just left the Forces are the most desperate."

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson has ensured the "Forces have taken great strides in recent years to make sure that more attention is being paid to mental health issues, whether they are deployment related or not," Ministry of National Defence spokesman Johanna Quinney told QMI Agency.

"We have augmented the military budget by $130 million, including an increase of $11.4 million for mental health initiatives, raising the total to $50 million. We now have 29 mental health clinics across the country."

The father-in-law of one young soldier who committed suicide says the military still needs to work on the basics.

Marc Tardif said if not for the Army's mistakes, his daughter-in-law, Anne Crevier, may still be alive today.

Crevier, 19, joined the forces in May 2011. On her final exercise of basic training, she was hit in the eye by a paintball. Crevier was wearing goggles, but not a full face mask.

The military transferred her for treatment to Valcartier in Quebec -- far from her family, friends and basic training mates.

"She was really left all on her own," Tardif said.

Crevier told Tardif that she was harassed while at Valcartier, and told that she was better suited to "work in an office."

Nine months after the paintball accident, Crevier committed suicide. "She lost all hope," Tardif said.

Two and a half years later, the family still waits for the results of the inquiry to Crevier's suicide.

-- ---- -----

Suicides in the Canadian Armed Forces (2004 to March 31 2014):

2014 (March 31) :

Male - regular forces: 5
Female - regular forces: 0
Male and female reserves: 3
Total: 8

2013

Male - regular forces: 9
Female - regular forces: 1
Male and female reserves: 3
Total: 13

2012

Male - regular forces: 10
Female - regular forces: 3
Male and female reserves: 4
Total: 17

2011

Male - regular forces: 21
Female - regular forces: 1
Male and female reserves: 3
Total: 25

2010

Male - regular forces: 12
Female - regular forces: 0
Male and female reserves: 1
Total: 13

2009

Male - regular forces: 12
Female - regular forces: 2
Male and female reserves: 8
Total: 22

2008

Male - regular forces: 13
Female - regular forces: 1
Male and female reserves: 1
Total: 15

2007

Male - regular forces: 9
Female - regular forces: 1
Male and female reserves: 2
Total: 12

2006

Male - regular forces: 7
Female - regular forces: 1
Male and female reserves: 3
Total: 11

2005

Male - regular forces: 10
Female - regular forces: 0
Male and female reserves: 1
Total: 11

2004

Male - regular forces: 10
Female - regular forces: 0
Male and female reserves: 3
Total: 13

-- Source - Department of National Defence

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php

Veteran’s advocate rallies for Torbrook woman

Veteran's advocate rallies for Torbrook woman

Heather Killen
Published on September 08, 2014

http://www.annapoliscountyspectator.ca/News/Local/2014-09-08/article-3862157/Veteran%26rsquos-advocate-rallies-for-Torbrook-woman/1

© Heather Killen

Leah Greene, a 36-year-old private, couldn't find the support she needed from the military and has turned to Barry Westholm, a national veteran's advocate.

Former sergeant major speaks out about poor process

By Heather Killen

The Spectator

hkillen@annapolisspectator.ca

A national veteran's advocate, working on behalf of Torbrook woman, is urging the government to start putting people over process.

Leah Greene, a 36-year-old private who was stationed at 14 Wing Greenwood, says she was lost in the shuffle and couldn't find the support she needed after a spinal cord injury ended her military career and left her in chronic pain.

She says the military abandoned her at a time when she needed it the most.

Desperate, Pte. Greene contacted Barry Westholm, a well-known Ontario-based veteran's advocate last fall, to help her pull her life back together.

Westholm made headlines last year after his resignation from the Joint Personnel Support Unit (JPSU) and more recently his break with the Conservative party, openly criticizing the government for its poor treatment of ill and injured military personnel.

The JPSU is a military branch created to help ill and injured military members, but with so many veterans now returning from tours of duty with injuries and emotional crisis, Westholm says the department is often too overwhelmed and understaffed to be much help.

Injured In 2009

Pte. Greene, a cook, was injured in 2009 during a ball hockey game, an activity she was required to do as part of her physical training. Before the injury, her life was moving in the direction of her dreams, but she says the accident has left her in limbo.

She was playing the game for the first time when she accidently twisted her back. She pulled back to take a shot that was blocked by another player. The force of the blocked motion wrenched her lower back and severely impacted the vertebrae.

"I was the only female playing, but I loved it," she said. "I knew I was hurt real bad, but I kept on playing. I didn't want to admit I was injured. Later at work, I was trying to cook the asparagus and I couldn't hold myself up."

Greene said she went to the emergency room that night and was treated for a strain. She knew something was seriously wrong, as she would temporarily lose sensation and control of her lower body. She would sit down and then find she couldn't stand, she would lie down and be unable to get up.

Toughed It Out

She says she tried to tough it out, but after a series of visits to the emergency room and a battery of tests, she was diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome, an extreme pressure and swelling of the nerves at the end of the spinal cord.

"They told me if you have this surgery, you'll be up dancing in six weeks," she said.

So she underwent the prescribed surgery, but experienced further complications that have left her permanently disabled and emotionally scarred.

Doctors prescribed various pain medications. She was taking as many as 16 different prescriptions to control the pain. Her life began to spiral out of control and eventually she lost her family, her home, and her independence, she said.

Left Alone

Unable to climb the stairs to access her bed and bathroom, she slept on her living room sofa and used a makeshift commode that was set up in the entryway of her front door.

For years no one from the military came to see her. She added that while she was still being paid by the military, her disability kept her from active duty and she was no longer part of anything.

It's the ugly machine of government. When you look at her military record before the injury, it was stellar. When I met her, she was a rambling wreck. The government puts process over people. When you see what happened here, you can see we are in big trouble as a country. Barry Westholm

As her physical independence deteriorated, her mental health also declined. She spiraled into depression, anxiety, and eventually thoughts of suicide. Trying to get the support she needed, she continued to reach out to the military for help.

Her behavior was viewed as erratic and she was institutionalized twice. She added that her situation finally degraded to the point where she was stationed to a room in Juno Towers in Halifax, her family was separated, and the military process that was intended to help her, was slowly erasing her life.

"At that point I took a leap of faith and reached out to Barry," she said. After hundreds of hours spent in meetings, writing letters, making phone calls and teleconferences on Pte. Greene's behalf, Barry Westholm says he's hopeful she will soon have what she needs for the road to recovery.

Home Modified

Her two-storey home has been modified to allow her to live on the main floor and Westholm has been able to provide her the moral support she needed to rebuild her confidence and independence.

He says Pte. Greene's case is an example of how cases can be mishandled and can subsequently spiral into a complete breakdown of the person's emotional, mental, and family life.

"It's the ugly machine of government," he said. "When you look at her military record before the injury, it was stellar. When I met her, she was a rambling wreck. The government puts process over people. When you see what happened here, you can see we are in big trouble as a country."

He added that many of the people he encountered during his time with JPSU expressed a similar sense of betrayal. In the early stages of military training, the individual is broken down to become part of a team.

But, once an injury separates a member from active duty, it's as though the team abandons the member. Feeling betrayed and isolated, all too often the condition spirals to a complete emotional breakdown, he said.

Conned

"From day one, they tell you that you are part of a team, but the minute you are injured, you realize you are on your own and you feel like you've been conned," he said. "She put her heart into her career, her military record was stellar. But after she was injured, no one came to see her for two years."

These cases are complicated and require many hours of intervention to resolve, he said. People need lots of support throughout the process in order to rebuild their lives.

"The work we were doing at first was good, but people kept coming and we were not staffed to handle the number of cases that were coming at us," he said. "We lost three people to suicide, I began hearing other stories."

Westholm says that complexity of these cases require countless hours of personal intervention that the government process doesn't include.

"These are complicated lives with complicated stories," he added. "There are just not enough people to help them."

Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.

http://canadianveteransadvocacy.com/Board2/index.php

New announcement: PTSD awareness march reaches New Brunswick

PTSD awareness march reaches New Brunswick

3 veterans left B.C. in June on cross-Canada journey

CBC News Posted: Aug 30, 2014 2:49 PM AT Last Updated: Aug 30, 2014 2:49 PM AT

(Check the Video) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/ptsd-awareness-march-reaches-new-brunswick-1.2751493

The men are aiming to raise awareness about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (CBC)

Three former soldiers are marching through New Brunswick as they enter the final few weeks of a cross-Canada journey aiming to raise awareness about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Laden with military backpacks, Steve Hartwig and two fellow veterans left CFB Gagetown on Friday, hoping to make it to Saint John on Saturday.

Their journey began in British Columbia back in June.

"Everybody has some misunderstanding about PTSD," said Hartwig. "When you come home a lot of people just don't understand what you go thorough."

The three men all served in Croatia in the 1990s and have been diagnosed with PTSD themselves. They're marching because they want the public to better understand the disorder, a condition affecting thousands of Canadians inside and outside the armed forces.

Veteran Paul Bilton welcomed the marchers.

"I was really upset there today when somebody said to me, 'Oh you're PTSD, just get over it and grow up.' That means I have to suck it back inside and try to deal with it. Well it's not going too good," he said.

Bilton served in three conflicts, most recently in Afghanistan. Some painful memories still linger.

"The dog sat on the anti-personnel mine. But what hurt, it was trying to talk to the kids and wiping the dog parts off their faces," he said.

It's stories like Bilton's that inspire the walking veterans.

"That's our motivation everyday is people coming and telling us it's making a difference for them," said Jason McKenzie.

The men hope to finish in St. John's, N.L. on Sept. 14.

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Regards,
The Canadian Veterans Advocacy Team.